Amazon Inspector
Vulnerability scanner software
DevSecOps software
- Features
- Ease of use
- Ease of management
- Quality of support
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What is Amazon Inspector
Amazon Inspector is a vulnerability management service that scans AWS workloads to identify software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure. It targets security and cloud operations teams that need continuous assessment of Amazon EC2 instances, container images, and AWS Lambda functions. The service integrates with AWS-native services and surfaces findings in AWS consoles and security dashboards, with prioritization based on vulnerability severity and exploitability signals.
Deep AWS service integration
Amazon Inspector integrates directly with AWS services such as Amazon EC2, Amazon ECR, and AWS Lambda to discover assets and run assessments without separate scanning infrastructure. Findings flow into AWS-native security workflows (for example, AWS Security Hub and Amazon EventBridge) for triage and automation. This reduces operational overhead for teams already standardized on AWS. It also supports centralized visibility across multiple AWS accounts via common AWS governance patterns.
Continuous vulnerability monitoring
Inspector performs ongoing scanning rather than point-in-time assessments, helping teams detect newly disclosed vulnerabilities that affect existing workloads. It correlates detected packages and images with vulnerability intelligence and produces actionable findings tied to specific resources. This supports continuous security practices aligned with DevSecOps operating models. It is particularly suited to environments with frequent image builds and ephemeral compute.
Prioritized, actionable findings
Findings include severity and contextual details that help teams decide what to remediate first, including affected resources and package-level information where available. The service supports alerting and routing through AWS eventing and security aggregation services to integrate with incident and ticketing processes. This can shorten time-to-triage compared with manual vulnerability review. It also helps standardize reporting across EC2, containers, and serverless workloads within AWS.
AWS-centric coverage scope
Inspector focuses on AWS-hosted resources and does not serve as a general-purpose scanner for non-AWS infrastructure. Organizations with significant multi-cloud or on-prem footprints typically need additional tools to achieve consistent coverage. This can lead to fragmented reporting and remediation workflows across environments. It is best aligned to teams that run the majority of workloads on AWS.
Limited SDLC security breadth
Inspector is primarily a runtime and artifact vulnerability scanner rather than a full application security platform. It does not replace dedicated tools for source code analysis, developer-centric dependency management, or broader pipeline governance. Teams may need complementary capabilities to cover code scanning, policy enforcement, and developer remediation workflows. As a result, it may not be sufficient as the only DevSecOps security control.
Findings require tuning and triage
Like most vulnerability scanners, Inspector can generate a high volume of findings that require prioritization, suppression, and workflow integration. Effective use often depends on configuring routing, ownership, and remediation SLAs across teams. Some vulnerabilities may be difficult to remediate quickly due to upstream package constraints or base image choices. Without process maturity, teams can experience alert fatigue.
Plan & Pricing
Pricing model: Pay-as-you-go Free tier/trial: 15-day free trial for new accounts (continual scans of eligible EC2 instances, Lambda functions, container images pushed to ECR, and code repositories at no cost during the trial; one-time free usage of 25 on-demand image assessments within CI/CD tools). CIS Benchmark assessments are not included in the 15-day trial. Example costs:
- EC2 instance scanning (SSM agent-based): $1.258 per instance-month.
- EC2 instance scanning (agentless): $1.75 per instance-month.
- EC2 CIS Benchmark assessment: $0.03 per assessment per instance.
- ECR on-push (initial) container image scan: $0.09 per image.
- ECR rescan: $0.01 per rescan.
- On-demand container image assessment (including within CI/CD tools): $0.03 per image.
- AWS Lambda standard scan: $0.30 per function-month (prorated by Inspector coverage hours).
- AWS Lambda code scan (additional): $0.60 per function-month (so standard + code = $0.90 per function-month when both enabled).
- Code repository scans (per repo per scan): $0.15 per scan (applies per scan type: SAST, SCA, IaC). Discount/options: No minimum fees or upfront commitments; billed regionally (prices listed are examples for US East (N. Virginia)). Use AWS Pricing Calculator or contact AWS for personalized quotes. Notes & billing considerations:
- Amazon Inspector creates temporary Amazon EBS snapshots for agentless EC2 scans; snapshot storage costs are billed separately under Amazon EBS pricing.
- Repositories larger than 10 MB are billed as multiple repositories (100 MB counts as 10 repos for billing).
- The Amazon Inspector API (SBOM input) is billed at the same $0.03 price where applicable.
- Costs are prorated by coverage hours for intermittently run resources.
Seller details
Amazon Web Services, Inc.
Seattle, Washington, USA
2006
Subsidiary
https://aws.amazon.com/
https://x.com/awscloud
https://www.linkedin.com/company/amazon-web-services/
